National Register #98001086
King-McBride Mansion
66 South Howard Street
Virginia City
Built c1870

This Italianate residence was designed by architect
Charles H. Jones for George Anson King, a director of the Virginia and
Truckee Railroad and the founder of the Nevada Bank of San Francisco in Virginia City.
King's home survived the Great Fire of 1875
while the mansions of neighboring moguls burned to the ground.

When the King family returned to San Francisco in the 1880's, they rented the house to
Judge Richard Rising for a few years before donating it to the Catholic Church. The Church
leased it to many people over the next half century including Halvor and Virginia Smedesrude beginning in 1944.
The Smedesrudes operated it as the Bonanza Inn, a fancy boarding house for wealthy out-of-state women who needed a six-week
residencies to obtain Nevada divorces. (Think of Clare Boothe Luce and
The Women and marvel at the eternal ability of the Catholic
Church to avert its gaze while raking in bucks from mortal sin.)

In 1953, the Church sold the property to the McBride family who own the Bucket of Blood Saloon on C Street.

The 1937 photograph from the Historic American Buildings Survey shows that the dormer windows were an unfortunate addition,
perhaps added to accommodate more divorcees in the attic.